I’m down in DC for the weekend with Jess and her business partner Catherine, working as their intern at a Dobbin holiday show.

In the past, we’d have left Gemelli behind for this kind of trip, but Penne is young enough – and terrible enough at walking on leash – that we didn’t want to dump them both on my brother (as he’s already regularly out walking Brooklyn, his cockapoo, he’s an excellent first line of doggy daycare defense), so they’re both in tow.

Traveling with two dogs has been an adventure. Penne, it turns out, gets carsick, and tossed her cookies within a few minutes of hitting the highway (and again, after a rest stop pitstop). Gem, who’s used to living in a building with just one other apartment on our floor, stayed up all night, growling at the door each time someone headed to or from one of the forty other rooms just down the hall.

That said, the Kimpton staff (dog-friendly across the entire chain) has been awesome, and both dogs were happy to nap together in the room last night when we hit the hotel’s newly re-cheffed restaurant Urbana, a current DC hotspot. And, as it’s been a few years since I was in Washington, it’s been fun to walk them through Dupont circle, or down K Street, enjoying the capital in its crisp, wintry best. I think we should all make it through the weekend in one piece.